Cyclelicious

Tuesday, February 28, 2006

EPO: The racer's edge

That's what it says on the t-shirt I bought from Velochimp. While we were taking these photos an Amgen employee came up and talked to us; she didn't seem too amused. This Amgen factory in my city is where rhEPO is manufactured. The location of this factory at the corner of Airport Road and Nelson Road in Longmont is also along a very popular route for road cyclists in Boulder County.

Perhaps I shouldn't treat this so lightly -- people die from EPO abuse. Their blood gets too thick and they get heart attacks. I want to make it clear that I am absolutely against doping in athletic competition.

$6.5 million requested for Colorado Safe Routes

Colorado communities have requested $6.5 million in grants for bicycle and pedestrian projects, exceeding the $2.3 million available in 2006 for Safe Routes to School programs.

Safe Routes funding is split between infrastructure and non-infrastructure grants. Infrastructure funding is for facilities and other engineering changes. Non-infrastructure funding is for promotion, awareness and education programs.

In Colorado, about $6 million has been requested for infrastructure grants, while non-infrastructure requests total $576,000. Federal law mandates that no less than 10% and no more than 30% of funding be used for non-infrastructure projects. In Colorado, the Safe Routes advisory committee will determine the percentage to distribute to non-infrastructure programs after they review and score all of the proposed projects.

CDOT's timeline is to complete the scoring my the end of March and to take their recommendation the Transportation Commission for approval in April.

My city has applied for a non-infrastructure grant to fund an existing "Walk and Roll" program in conjuction with the local school district and our two LCIs.

Monday, February 27, 2006

EPO test "faked science"

"Wow." According to a study published last month in Blood -- the peer-reviewed journal of the American Society of Hematology -- the test used by the WADA to test for the presence of synthetic EPO "can occasionally lead to the false-positive detection ... in post-exercise, protein-rich urine."

This has been hypothesized previously, but I believe this is the first time that this possibility for false positives has been demonstrated in a controlled experiment.

The study describes how the test is performed. Erythropoietin (EPO) is produced by the kidney to induce red blood cell production. Recombinant Human EPO (rhEPO) is manufactured by Amgen as a treatment for anemia and other diseases. It's also used to enhance performance in endurance sports. Natural and synthetic EPO have slightly different molecule electric charge differences. Tests for synthetic EPO use this charge difference to detect the presence of synthetic EPO.

The study shows, however, that post-exercise blood is rich in protein that also might be falsely detected as synthetic EPO.

Furthermore, this Medical News article notes, "Contrary to WADA claim, the Doping Journal analysis of citation impact of earlier publications on Epo testing in urine indicates IOC/WADA method for Epo testing is not scientifically popular or well-established. An in depth analysis of the articles behind the IOCs' urine test for Epo shows these earlier publications missed critical control experiments and were not designed to exclude non-specific false-positive misidentification of other non-Epo urine components. The Doping Journal is an international, peer-reviewed journal on doping science.

Hat tip to Spinopsys for finding this. He comments correctly when he writes, "The ramifications of this being right are quite incredible."

Monique Beullens, Joris R Delanghe, and Mathieu Bollen. "False-positive detection of recombinant human erythropoietin in urine following strenuous physical exercise." Division of Biochemistry, Department of Molecular Cell Biology, Faculty of Medicine, Catholic University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium and Department of Clinical Chemistry, University Hospital, Gent, Belgium. Blood Feb 2006. Read the ABSTRACT here. Pay $25 to read the full study here.

Bike commuting

Bike commuting. The Paceline is The Discovery Team's official website with news about pro cycling. Usually, there doesn't seem to be much in common between professional road cycling and transportational cycling besides that both use a bike, but Chris Brewer wrote a decent bike commuting primer for the racing audience at the Paceline. It's nice to see pro road racers pushing bike commuting like this.

Commodification of bike culture

That's what they're calling it. Brooklyn Industries sells clothing and accessories in Brooklyn and New York City. Brooklyn Industries recently put custom tallbikes in their store windows.

"Dissent about the blatant commercialization of this particular subculture" took the form of etching "Bike culture not for sale" using acid-based etching ink into the store windows, causing thousands of dollars of damage and resulting in the removal of the tallbikes from the display windows. Brooklyn Industries reports, "We at Brooklyn Industries personally worked on the display from the ground up- from finding disused bikes and parts and welding them into working tall bikes, to designing the accompanying text. The damage was felt on a very personal level."

Kiril sums up the news and gives his opinions on his blog and in comments at Sucka Pants. This "counterculture" display of sheer boneheadedness also got the attention the influential AdRants, which notes that "No one wants their sacred culture commercialized but in a capitalist society, there's little chance a culture with any cred won't sooner or later be bitten by a brand desperate for commercial success."

Drew at Commute a Blog summarizes his opinion with these words: "You people make me sick."

In spite of commentary at Sucka Pants and elsewhere attempting to justify the vandalism, I personally don't see anything good about what was done.

Anna Ternheim bicycle video

Anna Terheim is a young, pretty Swedish singer and guitar player with short blond hair and sad eyes who sings sad songs about loneliness and lost love. You can watch Anna ride a bicycle through village streets and rural tracks around Gotland in her music video "To Be Gone."

Via Missouri Bike Fed.